This is why some of them say that such knowledge cannot be immediate, since one would then deserve no reward for it.

Yet they disagree on this point, since the reward could be for something else. After all, they hold that life, the capacity for reflection, and immediate knowledge are created by Allah, yet no reward or recompense is due for them.

The proponents of affirmation therefore allow that knowledge ordinarily attained through reasoning may be immediate, and vice versa, since, in their view, this does not conflict with the reward Allah has promised. Indeed, they allow that Allah may place knowledge and love of Him in a servant’s heart without that servant’s own effort, and grant him the greatest reward for it.

Thus, those among Ahl al-Sunnah who argue that a servant attains knowledge and faith through Allah’s grace, mercy, guidance, and making Himself known—and other expressions to this effect—thereby refute the position of these Qadariyyah.

This is correct. Yet nothing in it entails that knowledge cannot be attained through rational reflection, just as nothing in it entails that knowledge cannot be attained through the teaching, calls, explanations, and arguments of the Messenger, scholars, and believers.

Rather, it is well known that knowledge sometimes arises in a servant’s heart through the explanations and instruction he hears from others: either by being directed to rational evidence or by being informed of an actual truth.

At other times, it arises through the reflection, contemplation, and reasoning that Allah casts into his heart and that take shape there, just as it sometimes arises through his own effort and reasoning.

At other times, Allah produces knowledge in him that he cannot but possess, without his having worked to acquire it, although